The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

In the contemporary Western "The Three
Burials of Melquiades Estrada," unfussy
filmmaking well serves a tale of male honor
that's sentimental at its core. Tommy Lee
Jones' impressive big-screen directorial debut
received two prizes at the Cannes festival: for
the screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga, and for
Jones' laconic, deeply felt lead performance
as a cowboy avenging a friend's murder. The
helmer's subtle work with his excellent cast
and Chris Menges' widescreen vistas of
merciless West Texas landscapes help to
temper the story's excesses. Moving from the
first burial -- a shallow grave -- to the final
hard-won act of redemption, the script at times
overstates its themes of suffering and
atonement. But unlike the Arriaga-penned "21
Grams," which fractured time to no particular
purpose, this film does only a little fancy
footwork with chronology before settling down
to straight-ahead storytelling, enriched by
character-based humor and nicely observed
oddities.

Rancher Pete Perkins (Jones) is a
brokenhearted man after his good friend's
body is discovered in the desert. Melquiades
Estrada (Julio César Cedillo), an illegal
Mexican immigrant who worked for Pete, was
a surrogate son to the solitary man;
conversing in Spanish, they had an easy
rapport. Evidence points to a Border Patrol
agent as the shooter, but Sheriff Belmont
(Dwight Yoakam) has no intention of pursuing
the case, instead quickly burying the "wetback"
in the town cemetery. Diner waitress Rachel
(Melissa Leo), whose extramarital activities
include liaisons with both Pete and Belmont,
provides the info Pete needs to take justice
into his own hands. He kidnaps Mike Norton,
a new and often brutal member of the Border
Patrol (outstanding work from Barry Pepper),
and forces him to disinter Mel's body. They set
off across the border on horseback to return
Mel to his family and bury him in Jiménez, the
hometown he so lovingly described to
Pete.

The film's second hour is devoted to the
hellish journey of the unholy trinity -- avenger,
accidental killer and rotting corpse. Subjected
to extreme physical suffering as they cross
brush and desert, the handcuffed and
recalcitrant Norton becomes a sort of
unwilling martyr figure. Pepper wisely
underplays the transformation from a man
who thinks nothing of breaking the nose of a
young Mexican woman trying to cross the
border to one capable of asking for
forgiveness. Supporting performances are
strong, from January Jones as the neglected
wife of Norton (their marriage summed up in a
darkly comic sex scene) to Levon Helm as a
blind man subsisting in isolation. Writer
Arriaga cameos as a TV-watching cowboy.
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Barry
Pepper, Julio César Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam,
January Jones, Melissa Leo and Levon Helm.
Directed by Tommy Lee Jones. Written by
Guillermo Arriaga. Produced by Michael
Fitzgerald, Luc Besson, Pierre-Ange Le
Pogam and Tommy Lee Jones. A Sony
Pictures Classics release. Drama. English-
and Spanish-language;
subtitled. Rated R for language, violence and
sexuality. Running time: 121
min